


The Fate of Monsters

by DaughterofProspero



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Ancient Greece, Fate, Hubris, Monsters, Oracles, Puzzles, Riddles, Thebes, hero - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 16:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18285578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofProspero/pseuds/DaughterofProspero
Summary: No monster dies a natural death. It is their fate to fall at the hands of a hero.Here, outside one of the city's seven gates, waits one such monster.





	The Fate of Monsters

No one has come to die today.  
It is quiet and hot; not even the rustle of grass to break the scorching silence. The distance shimmers and ripples in the heat. Perhaps this is why none have come.  
There is usually one or two these days. Early on they came in droves, before word spread. Then Thebes shut, locked, and barred their gates and people began to talk and far fewer foolhardy meals arrived.  
When they do, more often than not it is with the express purpose of besting me. It is rare to face a traveller truly ignorant of my challenge and I. They die confused, but they taste the same as anyone else.  
Cocksure boys confront me with their youthful swagger, or wizened scholars shuffle up with grim determination in their milky eyes but none succeed. The best and brightest the neighbouring towns have to offer, no doubt. Some that smelled of the sea may have come from even farther away, but I shouldn’t flatter myself.   
Every so often a fighter will come. Hardly a word passes between us before their sword is drawn, or a javelin is launched. One threw a net. I might have been worried once; long ago. But I know my purpose. My fate. And death will not claim me with metal toys.   
The weapons do nothing. When I am done with their owner I spit out the shield that did them no good and resume my waiting.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I saw no point in tracking the days; I never did before. I need no sleep, no water. Only food, meat. And that is delivered regularly. I have no need to fixate on the passage of time. I am in no hurry to die.  
I spent so much of my life a wanderer that to be so still is a comfort. I am reviled, but I know my place. It is here; outside the frightened city of Thebes. Awaiting the one who will answer my riddle. When he does, I will die. And he will go on to meet his gruesome fate.   
I am a passing monster in his epic story. A fanged obstacle, bragging rights; nothing more. But such is the fate of all abominations. We are born to die at the hands of a hero.   
This is not an easy thing for humans to understand. They have a strange relationship with fate. They seek it out, and spend the rest of their lives avoiding it. I, at least, embraced mine. We can’t all be heroes.

My very early days are all but lost to me. I can recall fur and scales and darkness and a sharp, sibilant voice that might have been my mother’s. I was one of many in her brood. One by one we left – though I can’t remember when or why, exactly – and went out into the world to find and serve our purposes.  
I roved aimlessly, never staying in one place for long. The humans made sure of that. I would take some cattle, or a stray animal, or a child, and before long they would be too careful to steal from. With their paranoia grew their uncomprehending ideas of my shape, my being. Was I a lion? A demon? A dragon? When they began to search for me I would leave. They would buy new livestock and bury their dead and move on.  
I had to stick to smaller settlements. Large cities were too risky. High walls and patrolling guards. I can fight; but in those days it felt like too big a gamble. I didn’t then know the extent of my immunity. If I was spotted by someone or something I deemed a threat I would rely on the shock of my appearance to disable them. If they froze, they were my next meal. If they ran, I ran the other way never to return. I sometimes wondered what happened to those people, the ones who saw me and turned tail. What did the other humans think of them? Were they believed?  
There are monsters aplenty in this world, but even though this is known my shape is not an easy one for humans to grapple with. I share the body of my brother – the nemean lion. His pelt is thicker than mine, but I make do. Wings like another sibling – the griffon. His wings are stronger than mine, but I hold no grudge. A tail like that of the sibling I am perhaps most similar too – the chimera. He is many beasts in one, but we both have the most vicious of serpents for tails. They would quarrel, I remember, when we were small. Tangling and biting at each other until one lay limp. His tail is fiercer than mine, but I can live with that.  
Then there is my face. I share this with none of my brethren, but with a different beast entirely. The face of those I terrorize. The face of a human. The mind of one too, perhaps, as I derive strange pleasure from watching their cruel machinations. Terrible as monsters may be, there is a cruelty to humans even the most brutal of my siblings could never imagine. The cruelest of them all – though to say so aloud is something not even I, with the knowledge of my fate, would risk – are the Gods.  
They always seemed distant to me. While they had jurisdiction over all, they seemed to spend most of their time meddling with the humans. And, to be fair, the humans would meddle with them. I know the Gods are why my mother and father were sealed away, and why my siblings and I must all be villains in some hero’s story, and I know they are why there is any order in the world of mortals, but they seem to be a great cause of chaos as well.   
If humans are petty – and they are; the Gods are doubly so. If humans are vengeful – and they are; the Gods are triply so. The Gods turned a mirror onto the earth, and the humans turned one back so both might echo each other into infinity. 

Even if I had not come to this conclusion before, my encounter at Delphi would have convinced me.  
There was a day where I caught a strange scent on the wind. Herbs. Smoke. Snakeskin. It was like nothing I had ever experienced and it intrigued me. I followed the scent to a large, white building. Heady perfumes emanated from the structure, a plume of smoke rising into the air from it’s centre. On the exterior of what I recognized as a temple, were written three phrases: “Nothing in excess,” “make a pledge, and mischief is nigh”, and “know thyself”.  
The last phrase sent a shiver through me. Know thyself. Is there anything more I desire? Though I burned to enter, I hung back. Waited. Watched.  
Over the next little while I saw many humans come and go. Many wore the same garments and bore what I recognized as offerings. Singing could be heard sometimes, too. Others were travel-weary, and masked their nerves with a thin veneer of bravado, which was completely gone by the time they exited; wide-eyed, and shaken. Being on sacred ground was a notion which made me uncomfortable, but not enough to leave.  
I was not sure exactly what I feared by staying where I was. I didn’t truly believe Apollo would descend and turn me to ash…but the lingering discomfort remained until, after what must have been more than a week, I entered the temple myself.  
Like the many humans I had observed walking into the scented halls, I, too, was filled with trepidation. My near silent footfalls felt clamorous and clumsy. My heart was thudding inside my lions breast, and my tail quivered, snapping at the thick, scented air. When I reached a hallway, leading into darkness, I hesitated only a second before continuing.  
Dim light ahead drew me forward and the walls widened to become a chamber. The only source of light were the candles placed around its perimeter, casting eerie shadows on the walls. Pots of sand with incense stuck in them burned by the dozen. At the very back were two birds made of gold. Eagles. Zeus, I thought. Even in the holy site of his son he must be acknowledged.  
For the first time in my life I encountered humans that did not seem phased by my presence. Two at the back in priestly robes stared at me impassively, and a third in the middle of the room, seated on a three-legged chair fixed her eyes on me as well. They were strange eyes. Clouded, like they could not see; though they looked right at me. Through me.  
I bowed my head, a sign of reverence I knew the humans made. It felt appropriate though I had never given any deference to Godly things before.  
“Sphinx,” said the human in the chair. “Are you sure you wish to know your fate?” She asked.   
Her age was a mystery. Through the dimness and haze of the room I could only be sure that she was small. Not a child, but small. Frail. She clutched a bouquet of leaves in one hand, and held a bowl aloft in the other. Her eyes, unblinking, never left me.  
“Yes,” I said, like so many before me. I wondered if like so many before me I would regret it.  
“Very well,” said the oracle. She closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply. As she did, a previous feature of the room came to my attention. A crack in the floor that ran the width of the room began releasing even more smoke. Vapours that overpowered even the incense rose quickly, and the oracle took them in with gulping breaths. Sweat was forming on her brow, and the leaves in her hand shuddered.  
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, and at that exact moment, the bowl lighted. Bright, golden light erupted from it, as though she had released a captive sunbeam. I squinted, shielding my eyes as best I could while still straining to see what was happening. The two priestesses to the side did the same, but the oracle gazed into the sun, unflinching.   
As indifferent as I was to the divine, it was an awe-inspiring sight. The oracle’s skin appeared to glow in the refraction of the light – or perhaps it really was glowing. Fixated on the depths of the bowl and the visions of the future within them, she opened her mouth. The vapours she inhaled began to pour out in a serpentine stream. I heard her voice as the smoke serpent slithered downwards.

“City ringed in seven gates,  
Here the girl-faced lion waits;  
Asks her riddle, ends fool’s years  
‘Til the limping man appears.  
Question’s answer ends her life;  
So, blind son meets mother-wife;  
Dies she knowing of her role,  
Only one will pay her toll.”

The last of the smoke slipped from her lips and coiled on the ground before dispersing. The light in the bowl faded, the fissure in the floor becoming all but invisible again.  
The oracle nodded once to me, and sank back into her chair. The two priestesses came forward and wiped her brow, tending to her and praising her and Apollo both. I retreated, racing away from the temple, wings extended, mind racing. I ran, and ran until I couldn’t smell the place anymore and roared, announcing myself in a way I never would have even a day ago.  
Like so many before I had been told how I would die. But the natural thrill of fear that came from the discovery was dwarfed by an overwhelming wave of relief.   
Finally, I knew what I was for.

It took some time, but as I had mused before; the passage of time was much less daunting to me than to others. It had a different meaning now that I knew my purpose, certainly; but another season slipping by was no reason to panic.   
My destination was clear enough. “City ringed in seven gates”. Though not of humankind, I had heard more than one reference to the legends of the city of Thebes. The misfortune that befell house that ruled it. Now, I was to become another of its curses.  
The only trouble was the riddle. “Here the girl-faced lion waits. Asks her riddle, ends fool’s years.” I am to take up residence outside the gates, and pose a question. Those who cannot answer correctly I kill. Simple enough. But what riddle?  
I reached the outskirts of Thebes before I had come up with a suitable puzzle. Determined not to stake my claim before I was ready, I hid in the wilderness – as I had done so many times before – to think.   
I am a proud creature. But I have reason to be. A monster I may be, but I am no brutish brother chimera, or tamed three-headed Cerberus. I have not spent my wandering years learning nothing; If there were ever one to create a nearly impossible riddle, it would be me.   
I considered the things that were great and mysterious in the world. But most were beyond my knowledge, let alone a human’s. It would have to be something clear to me, but not to them. Something, maybe they don’t want to think about.  
I recalled the etchings in the walls of the Delphic temple.  
“Nothing in excess”. How many hundreds of thousands disregarded such wisdom until it is too late? They spend their lives gathering, and hoarding only to cast their collections away as they lie upon their death-beds, only the things dearest to them near. But what if the old rise to my challenge. They will be able to answer with ease. No.  
“Make a pledge, and mischief is nigh”. How many desperate, and love-addled fools make promises they cannot keep? The repercussions they have been warned of ignored, damning their eminent tomorrow so they may have a sweet today. But while they may not listen to the adage, they surely know it. Too easy. No.  
“Know thyself”. Now here is the heart of the matter. What human truly knows that is all they are? Only the heroes rise high enough above the rest to see how small they all are. And only a hero will answer my question.   
“Know thyself”. What is more mysterious to a person than people? What is less accepted than mortality?  
What is young, then old, then dies?  
“Surely”, they think, “it cannot be me.”  
But it always is. And they will never see it.

I spread my wings, and let out another roar, one I hoped would reach the city.  
Leaping from the treeline I barreled down to the closest gate and jumped, landing in the centre of the path and roaring again. I felt a rush of ecstasy as I did so; never had I tried to make my presence known before this day.   
The guards were surprised and I made easy work of them. Even if their hastily drawn weapons had been able to damage me, I towered over them and of the few strikes of theirs that landed, none so much as ruffled my hide.  
People screamed and ran in all directions. Most fled away from the city, and those I did not bother chasing. I only hunted those who ran to enter Thebes, leaving none who sought refuge within alive.  
This was my territory now. Until I died.

A rare gust trembles past me and on it the scent of food. Here comes today’s challenger.   
There’s blood on the breeze. A fighter, then. Freshly bloodied, or at the very least unwashed if I can smell them so sharply. I roll back my leonine shoulders and raise my head. A lone figure approaches, I can see him now.   
Then I hear him.  
The light crunch of sandals on gravel. One footfall harder than the other. Hard soft, hard soft, hard soft.   
He limps.  
And so my fate approaches; step by uneven step.  
I strain my senses, trying to learn more of this unlucky hero. The oracle called him blinded, but so many humans are. Then again, most humans aren’t in the practice of marrying their parents. “Mother-wife”. Poor hero.  
He is young. Handsome. Despite his irregular stride he carries himself with poise. Noble-born, no doubt. A prince maybe; and a proud one at that. Too proud, even, to accept aid from a crutch.   
He with the answer to my riddle, he who will be my undoing – and by extension – his own stops before me and smiles.  
“Good day,” he says. He leans his weight on his good foot and stares lazily up to meet my eyes.  
So this is how will die, the stench of hubris lingering in the air.  
“Good day, hero,” I reply.  
“You flatter me.”  
I flick my tail, and it hisses loudly. The hero’s surprise is only betrayed by a quirk of an eyebrow.   
“Who are you,” he asks casually.  
“A monster, nothing more.” I may riddle, but I do not lie. Regardless, my answer seems to amuse him.  
“Surely that isn’t all. ‘Monster’ is such a…self-defeating title.”  
“Perhaps, but it is a realistic one, hero.”  
He considers this, bending down and rubbing one of his ankles as though he were not in imminent peril. Though, I suppose, he isn’t. But how is he to know that?  
“Why do you call me ‘hero’,” he says eventually.  
“It’s what you are. Or will be.”  
“How do you know?”  
“I know many things.”   
I do not mean to be so cryptic; but I feel as though lightning is running through me, and my speech has been heightened like all other functions. The heat of the sun beating down on my back, the smallest ridges in the stone beneath me, the scent of royal blood from the man in front of me. I have been given the gift of feeling everything before feeling nothing.  
It will be soon. But I must ask one more thing of this hero before his silver-tongue is my undoing.  
“Who are you,” I ask. He blows air out sharply through his nose, hiding a chuckle. He must think it odd I ask it now after calling him hero. He eyes me carefully, his good nature masking his distrust.   
“My mother’s son,” he responds with a smirk.   
So he will not say. I go to my death without even learning my hero killer’s name. The world will remember it for ages and all I will know of him is his unsteady stride and terrible fate. ‘My mother’s son’, he says. Thinks himself so clever.  
I breath in the dusty afternoon air, a peaceful clarity settling into my bones. I look down at the hero and allow myself a single act of self-satisfaction before giving him the question to his answer.   
Know thyself, hero.   
I speak:  
“Not quite.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello? Yes, Greek mythology nerd speaking.  
> Loved this stuff as a kid, still do. Want to learn more about other mythologies besides Greek and Norse, so I looked into Egyptian which wound up bringing me right back to thinking about sphinxes.  
> Because sphinxes are cool as Hell.  
> I think I've had a skin-and-bones version of this on my computer for maybe 5+ years, but I never really made it anything. Really just the first line, and a rough sketch of the conversation at the end. Kind of surprised it turned out as long as it did, but not unhappy. 
> 
> Ended up doing more research than anticipated on Delphi - also really cool. The inscriptions and the set-up/items in the oracle's chamber are based on what we think it really looked like (more or less.)   
> Also I'm not sure what the widely accepted version of the birth of monsters is, but I went with the 'Tyson and Echidna had a bunch of monster kids version'.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


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